I volunteer as tech support for a small organization. For years we relied on Ubuntu on our desktops, but the users didn't like it when Ubuntu switched to the Unity interface. This article tells about our search for a replacement and why we decided on Xfce running atop Linux Mint.

If you want a traditional interface these days, your major choices are KDE, XFCE, and LXDE.

Gnome 3 and Unity have gone off in a different direction, and Windows 8 UI has gone off the deep end. I don't know why those behind these systems are convinced that one interface handles desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones. Apple and Google have wisely decided that these are different computer uses that require different operating systems. It will be interesting to see if 8.1 brings Windows back from the brink, or whether this view that one operating system can handle all kinds of computers is fatally flawed.